The Unbidden Truth by Kate Wilhelm Page A

regarding the ceiling with a little smile on his face.
    â€œActually,” Barbara said, “I’m trying to fill in her past. You know she has amnesia for the early years of her life—”
    â€œShe’s in trouble. Amnesia! Ha! She didn’t want to talk about her mother and father, that’s what that amounted to. She made up a fairy tale and pretended it was true.”
    â€œWhy do you say that?” Barbara asked.
    â€œHer father was a no-good, out-of-work housepainter. They lived out of his truck most of the time, moving from place to place, probably one step ahead of the sheriff, scamming old people. Like gypsies. They were like gypsies. He probably molested her and her mother let him, and she wanted to pretend they didn’t exist, just to get away from her past.”
    â€œDo you know about them? Did the caseworker tell you their history, or give you documentation?”
    â€œShe hinted, that’s all. Just hinted. They swallowed the story about amnesia. I had my name, our names, down for a regular little girl, eight to ten years old, no bed wetter, no alcohol syndrome, no mental case, just an ordinary little girl, and they brought me Carol. She was a liar and a sneak from the first day. She said she lived in a palace with a thousand rooms! And her father was going to bring home a king for the queen! I made her stop that nonsense, all right. I told her she was crazy, and crazy people belonged in the hospital. She was afraid of the hospital, afraid of loud noises, afraid of fire, just afraid. And scrawny, with her hair sticking out like spikes all over her head.”
    â€œMrs. Colbert, do you have the name of the caseworker, or the agency that handled the foster-care arrangements?”
    â€œJust the children’s service people. I don’t remember their names. It was twenty-four years ago. But I remember that child sneaking around, prying into things, telling her lies.Autism, that’s what she had. I didn’t have a name for it then, but now I know. She was autistic. I made her stop that, too.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œSlow. She was slow in school, slow to develop, slow to catch on to things. She missed only a couple of months of school. The accident happened in June and we got her in October, so she didn’t miss much, but she didn’t know anything other kids her age should know, and it took her years to catch up. She’d move her hands the way they say autistic kids do, in some kind of compulsive, repetitive action, over and over and over. I slapped her hands and made her stop that. You can cure them if you’re firm. And she cried a lot. I could hear her at night, crying. For nothing. We gave her a good home. We couldn’t help it if her parents had mistreated her. We gave her a good home.”
    â€œWhat kind of motions did she make with her hands?” Barbara asked when Adrienne paused for breath.
    She began to move her bony fingers as if on a keyboard.
    â€œWas she evaluated psychologically?” Barbara asked. “Did you get any reports regarding her mental health?”
    â€œNo. Just the caseworker. She agreed that she was crazy, but she said she’d outgrow it. Childhood schizophrenia, she said. Caused by some kind of stress syndrome. She said she’d outgrow it, but she didn’t. She just stopped talking. But she was still crazy, I could tell. It was in her eyes. I knew she’d be in trouble sooner or later. I was afraid of her when she got older. You don’t know what crazy kids will do next. You read all the time about those shootings, things like that. I was glad when she packed up and left.”
    â€œYou bought her a car when she graduated from high school, didn’t you?”
    â€œWe never did. The caseworker said there was insurance due when she turned eighteen. Enough for her to go to a technical school or something and get training to support herself. But she wouldn’t do that.